Under the scorching heat of thirst I regress to childhood, lost naivety

among the dunes of the great Namib Desert...

If the world were a landscape I would imagine it as a steppe or a desert, an evocative and wild place. The desert, contrary to popular belief, is a place of strength and survival, ideally necessary and visionary.

If I were an animal moving through this landscape I would be a brown hyena. I am beast in animal body, I am a thinking being. I observe the world as a wasteland, interspersed with green oases, rich in vegetation, large rock formations where you can find shelter from the bad weather of life and with coasts bathed by oceans and stormy seas.

I am an animal unloved by society, due to my strangeness and because I am different, elusive in the night, solitary, suspicious and wary. I scrutinize reality from afar, I feel the movements from the den, I hide, I seek shelter in inaccessible crevices, far from the prying eyes of man. I am afraid of him, of the wickedness of his actions. The other animals don't scare me, I know they would attack me just by instinct, but he does. I think I'm an unpopular, and disliked animal, because of my scavenger habits from time immemorial associated with evil and cowardice in common morality.

I am a rare animal, difficult to spot, crepuscular, a discreet hunter at night, solitary, polyandrous and in need of love. Man and his ruthless hunting have confined me to remote and pristine areas. I hunt at night and wander on desolate, foggy shores. I love darkness and gloom because daylight and summer heat make me prone to melancholy.

I am a social animal, I contribute to society by eliminating the waste and remains I find to feed myself. But I am also sharp and strong, despite the popular belief, I am capable of killing large prey and equipped with the most powerful jaws in the animal world, to break the hardest bones and feed on the bone marrow. I don't wish anyone to be between my teeth,they are sharp and I could easily break a man's arm. The call of my spotted sisters is like a yelp, in the night it sounds like a laugh that makes shiver. This is perhaps the reason why over time my image has been associated with evil and sin. I am ambiguous and different from all other species.

I have something in common with canid, felid, ursid and also pig's family. I wonder what strange taxonomic mix or pairing I was generated from.

The landscape I move through in the morning has an inviting light and welcomes the world with its colors. I discover that nature has a deep soul, I feel her breath on me and I know that every part of it around is life and belongs to me in every fiber of my being. Its variety of forms and living creatures prompts my will to live, I feel in the air the scent of its power and it catches me. Plants tend their branches towards the air in search of freedom, they know that time has the answer. Nature is as sublime as all its creatures. The glow it gives off is amazing. I think about the infinity, the plurality of worlds, the slippery mystery that it possesses and that lies within the universe.

There is a soul in living things, a deep mystery is in nature and I would like to discover it. In the hottest hour the heat becomes unbearable, all the animals run in the shadow of the shelters, the horizon becomes fiery. The desert lives in a magical and timeless vibe.

Following in the footsteps on the ground I see piles of bones, in the sand they speak of man’s journey towards the dark. Under the clear, crystalline sky, the dunes like waves draw new shapes and appear like lips segregated in a love cell. It's a landscape that disappears shrouded in fog, full of pitfalls.

Sometimes I grop in the dark, I mystify reality, I fall into low layers, I lose sight of the heights. In the summer heat the warmth is pungent and oppresses me. I look forward to the arrival of night when the coolness and breeze awaken the underground nature.

Suddenly I am terrified by a vision, a skeleton rises from the earth staring at me. I look for other creatures but I realize that they are not there. Who or what turned all this immensity into a barren, endless desert?

The staggering skeleton exclaims: “Man! How could you destroy all this? Can't you see your evil in this damage? You condemn me at succumbing in the darkness." I am not the man, but the one who flees from him, puppet! "

I reply. "I have some dice, someone must have forgotten them by passing throughhere. I'll propose a game to you, we'll throw them three times whoever gets the highest sum of the numbers will win. Whoever will lose instead will go to the city to men to claim our right to freedom and demand that this work of destruction be finished forever!" I answer "but I can't go, men hate my species and as soon as they see me they will kill me!"

"They won't kill you if you can use a wise language and make them understand that every living creature has a purpose in this world".

The skeleton responds, as a tooth falls from its battered skull.

"Okay, I accept but be careful not to deceive me, if you cheat me I will ll eat you!"I answer.

The skeleton rolls the dice the first time getting a three, the hyena a seven. They throw for the second time, the skeleton gets a nine while the hyena gets a four. It remains the last game. The skeleton gets a six and the hyena gets a seven again.

"We've gone even" I say, "so now what do we do?"

"We'll roll the dice one more time,” the skeleton says.

"Okay," I reply.

The skeleton gets an eight, the hyena a two.

"You lost!" the skeleton says, sneering as his staggering bones creak on the ground.

"Okay," I reply, "I'll go to town.”

I begin the journey to the city, but no living beings I meet on my way. When I arrive I notice that the city is reduced to a pile of rubble, the superheat has destroyed everything and the men are all dead. I go back to my skeleton friend to inform him, while I think in my head that we will probably all die little by little.

The fog thickens, an empty landscape dominates the still air and preludes a song of death. The skull in the terrain speaks to me of man, inexorable is his destiny. The creatures he loves, such as plants and animals, slowly disappear, leaving in their tracks the mark of their earthly passage. The traces dissolve in the warmth of the wind, in a process of slow erosion of water and air. The curtain falls on this gloomy landscape of death and desolation. The brown hyena disappears on the horizon of the skeleton coast.

THE END